Musings of an Englishman living in the USA. Job hunting, writing, random thoughts and anything else that strikes my fancy.

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Monthly Archives: October 2014

A quick note by way of introduction may be required here. For quite some time now, certain members of the Richmond WriMos have been trying to persuade me to watch the CW show Supernatural. I have relented and am now embarking on watching Supernatural via the wonders of Netflix. This series of posts will simply be my first impressions, almost stream of consciousness style, presented in the form of the time elapsed in the episode and my thoughts expressed as bullet points. It’s effectively live tweeting the episodes except I don’t have to stick to 140 characters or fewer. So without further ado here’s my take on:

Season 1 Episode 21 – “Salvation”

00:02 – The previouslies section gets a formal title “The Road So Far”

00:05 – And a backing song “Carry On Wayward Son” by Kansas (sadly, not on Netflix)

01: And we start the teaser with Meg entering a church. I’m predicting this won’t go well for the preacher.

02:48 – Meg has the demon black eyes. I think this is the first confirmation in show that she is,in fact, a demon. Though it has been obvious for a while that she’s both not human and some seriously bad juju. The preacher’s reaction makes me think that he might be the oft-mentioned Pastor Jim.

03:20 – He’s clearly a hunter, so yeah, it’s Pastor Jim

03:55 – …And, he’s dead. Particularly nasty throat slash from Meg

05:20 – So the demon that Meg works for has a thing for 6-month-olds? That’s all kinds of squicky.

05:39 – So, Sam the self-loathing is blaming himself for Mommy Winchester and Dead Jessica’s fate, rather than, you know, the actual damned (no pun intended) demon that did it.

06:59 – Picking a target in a town called Salvation shows that this demon, while an undoubted son of a bitch, has a keen sense of irony.

07:46 – Pastor Jim’s identity – confirmed.

08:02 – I assume this “Caleb” is A) a hunter and B) not long for this world

09:17 – Pretty sure Daddy Winchester just lost the will to live and doesn’t care if avenging his wife is a suicide mission.

10:38 – Gotta give Dean props for managing to find time to hit on the receptionist despite the urgency of his task and the major stakes involved in regards to the demon that started this whole thing.

11:06 – Sam’s getting a vision. Since these have all been demon related hitherto, I imagine this will reduce their gigantic baby name list down to the slightly more manageable size of “1.”

37:05 -Apparently Sam shares Daddy’s death wish and Dean doesn’t. I would have bet good money it would be the other way around.

38:17 – “If hunting this demon means you getting yourself killed then I hope we never find the damn thing.” – Who are you and what have you done with Dean Winchester?

39:54 – I knew that “To Be Continued…” had to be coming. Doesn’t make it any less frustrating.

So, yeah. A whole lot of rich plotty goodness (with marrow bone jelly) going on in this episode, as can fairly be inferred by the sheer number of bullet points above. It’s kind of hard to comment on what is fundamentally half an episode story wise, and it’s even harder to hold off from firing up the second part and watching it right now, but it’s late and these posts take a significantly bigger chunk of time than the episodes alone do. There are plenty of threads brought up here and they obviously all relate to the metaplot of the season, which is the element I’ve most enjoyed. There’s so much I need to have answered and the episode’s cliffhanger “What happened to Daddy Winchester?” is probably the least of them. I want to know why Ol’ Yellow Eyes is interested in six month old babies, what Meg’s partner’s deal is, what Ol’ Yellow Eyes’ deal is, Heck, why does Ol’ Yellow Eyes even have yellow eyes instead of the standard black? This was a great set up episode and it gave the boys a minor victory over the season’s Big Bad by saving the baby. I get the feeling the next episode is going to be utterly epic. I can’t wait.

And I figure I’ll take a proper break after I’m done with the season and concentrate on NaNoWriMo, so don’t expect any of these “Live” blogs on the second season until December.

A quick note by way of introduction may be required here. For quite some time now, certain members of the Richmond WriMos have been trying to persuade me to watch the CW show Supernatural. I have relented and am now embarking on watching Supernatural via the wonders of Netflix. This series of posts will simply be my first impressions, almost stream of consciousness style, presented in the form of the time elapsed in the episode and my thoughts expressed as bullet points. It’s effectively live tweeting the episodes except I don’t have to stick to 140 characters or fewer. So without further ado here’s my take on:

Season 1 Episode 20 – “Dead Man’s Blood”

01:14 – This guy in the teaser has a very similar journal to Daddy Winchester’s. I’m assuming he’s also something of a hunter type.

02:22 – She must be a terrible barmaid. If someone orders “Jack all around,” you don’t generally grab a bottle of Johnny Walker.

03:23 – By the way black jacket woman pulled that blade out of her chest, she’s clearly not human. What is she?

04:33 – That gun must be pretty significant for the show to linger on it, and for evil woman creature to specifically call it out.

06:12 – It seems that our gentleman of the Inevitable Teaser Death has some kind of connection with Daddy Winchester. At least his name and number are in the journal.

09:38 – Daddy just scared the unholy hell out of his boys. Serves them right for stealing his mail.

10:30 – Daddy Winchester doesn’t get along well with many folks does he?

11:06 – Judging by that freak-out this antique Colt must be a big deal.

11:25 – They fight ghosts,demons and witches on the reg but Dean finds vampires to be a stretch? O-kaay then…

17:58 – Got to credit Luther (the lead vampire) with some genre savvy here. He realizes that attacking a hunter will bring others looking for them. Considering what the Winchesters are doing right now, he’s not wrong.

19:52 – Wow, Sam’s daddy issues make him card of hardcore.

21:32 – I think they just turned the female prisoner into a vampire. It’s kind of hard to tell because it’s so dark, and because I think they were trying to be titillating with the direction. It fell flat.

22:41 – Daddy’s truck armory rather puts the Impala’s version to shame.

23:48 – Backstory for the gun given, as well as an explanation of why Daddy Winchester wants it so bad. Reading between the lines it seems like this gun is the only thing that can kill – not just exorcise or banish, outright kill the demon that got Mommy Winchester and Dead Jessica.

26:48 – Okay, she was definitely turned. And her roar when Sam tries to save her is a very sneaky way fr this vampire nest to have a burglar alarm.

39:53 – That’s a spectacular looking death for Luther, and proof that the Colt works every time. It’s also used up 20% of the remaining ammo. They’re going to have to be careful going after this demon thing.

So far I’ve really enjoyed every episode that Daddy Winchester has appeared in. This one was certainly no exception to that. They’ve also now acquired a method of taking care of the demon that’s been driving the plot of the show since the pilot. Plus we are getting close to the season finale (only two episodes left this season), so I imagine some really big stuff is going to go down. Especially now that the Winchesters are hunting as a triad. I imagine that the next two episodes will effectively be a two parter and am looking forward to it.

This episode was more of a table setting one,but it had some good moments of its own as well. Establishing vampires and how they differ from the standard lore in the show’s universe makes sense. I’m honestly surprised it took them until this late in the season to get there considering the ubiquity of vampires in pop culture. Another highlight was the scene between Sam and his father where we realize that they aren’t that different from each other, and how Daddy Winchester never wanted the hunting life for his boys. Actually the character development and dynamics between all three of the male Winchesters were excellent. As was this episode.

A quick note by way of introduction may be required here. For quite some time now, certain members of the Richmond WriMos have been trying to persuade me to watch the CW show Supernatural. I have relented and am now embarking on watching Supernatural via the wonders of Netflix. This series of posts will simply be my first impressions, almost stream of consciousness style, presented in the form of the time elapsed in the episode and my thoughts expressed as bullet points. It’s effectively live tweeting the episodes except I don’t have to stick to 140 characters or fewer. So without further ado here’s my take on:

Season 1 Episode 19 – “Provenance”

00:01 – No “Previously on Supernatural” this episode. Instead straight into the teaser.

00:37- Which means that this couple of art buyers will get to be the Inevitable Teaser Deaths faster than usual.

01:10 – Faces moving in the painting, and not in that goofy Harry Potter way.

18:47 – Exposition guy expounding on the history of the Isaiah Merchant family seems entirely too cheerful about the concept of slitting throats with a straight razor.

20:32 – So Dean’s hoping that if Sam gets some action he’ll be less moody. I sort of get that.

22:58 – The painting claims another victim, but I don’t think we saw her prior to this, so no real impact for the death.

24:01 – The woman’s head tilting back away from her slit throat like that was a fantastic shot, and totally earned Sarah’s scream.

26:04 – “Sam, marry that girl.” I guess Dean’s pushing them for more than a hookup after all. Also,on an utterly shallow level, the braids in her hair look really good.

28:06 – Breaking into a mausoleum seems almost humdrum for the boys, so it’s nice to see Sarah come along and find it weird.

30:38 – So, Sam does want Sarah but he’s doing the noble thing in not dating her so that she doesn’t get hurt. I imagine Dead Jessica is weighing heavily on his mind.

34:06 – Dean still trying to set Sam and Sarah up. You have to admire his persistence.

34:33 – The sound of a little girl giggling is surprisingly chilling. Apparently it wasn’t old Isaiah doing the throat slitting.

37:13 – And Sarah comes through with the idea to make the save. Also, I found those dolls creepy enough before watching the show, finding out that they have real human hair certainly doesn’t lessen that sense of unease.

38:18 – Nice intercutting between Sam & Sarah under attack and Dean doing his thing at the mausoleum. I’m also amused by Dean getting frustrated that he can’t crack the glass with the butt of his gun before realizing that he can just shoot the damn glass with said gun.

42:17 – At least they finally kiss. (Sarah & Sam, not the brothers…)

I liked this one. The introduction of Sarah to the actual hunt switched up the character dynamics between Sam & Dean a little. It also was a nice character beat to see Sam start to work his way past Dead Jessica. It makes sense given the time frame and the immense stress the hunting life style must cause. Also, the twist that it wasn’t Isaiah who was responsible for the murders was done well. Another great standalone episode. The show has figured out its strengths for the most part, and this episode played to them.

A quick note by way of introduction may be required here. For quite some time now, certain members of the Richmond WriMos have been trying to persuade me to watch the CW show Supernatural. I have relented and am now embarking on watching Supernatural via the wonders of Netflix. This series of posts will simply be my first impressions, almost stream of consciousness style, presented in the form of the time elapsed in the episode and my thoughts expressed as bullet points. It’s effectively live tweeting the episodes except I don’t have to stick to 140 characters or fewer. So without further ado here’s my take on:

Season 1 Episode 18 – “Something Wicked”

02:41 – So far the teaser feels kind of like a fairy tale, what with the Mom not being around, the point-of-view character being a little girl and the idea that there might be something out there. Of course, the original forms of most fairy tales are very, very dark so that might not be an entirely comforting milieu. I don’t think the little girl will get an Inevitable Teaser Death as the show has been reluctant to kill children, because network television.

25:52 – Time for Dean to launch into an angsty guilt-ridden flashback.

28:15 – Apparently this thing tried to feed off of Sam while Dean abandoned him to hit the video game arcade. Kind of explains Dean’s slight overprotectiveness towards his little bro.

32:43 – The kid’s a pretty decent actor.

36:43 – That’s a lot of shots for two handguns.

38:03 – Yeah, I think I’d keep shooting the sumbitch just to make sure. Also liked the thematic tie in to the flashbacks by having the shtriga begin consuming Sam again, trying to finish up the meal it started sixteen years back.

There wasn’t a whole lot to this episode. It seemed very much a rote,monster of the week type of story. It certainly wasn’t bad, and the tie in to Dean’s past guilt and the flashbacks worked really well in upping the stakes. I don’t know, it just doesn’t feel like there’s much to say about the episode that I haven’t already covered in the bullet points.

A quick note by way of introduction may be required here. For quite some time now, certain members of the Richmond WriMos have been trying to persuade me to watch the CW show Supernatural. I have relented and am now embarking on watching Supernatural via the wonders of Netflix. This series of posts will simply be my first impressions, almost stream of consciousness style, presented in the form of the time elapsed in the episode and my thoughts expressed as bullet points. It’s effectively live tweeting the episodes except I don’t have to stick to 140 characters or fewer. So without further ado here’s my take on:

Season 1 Episode 17 – “Hell House”

01:05 – A group of teens approaching a sinister house in the woods? There is literally no way in which this could go badly.

03:17 – Ooh a hanging dead girl. I guess that does count as scary, though the acting in this teaser is ridiculously camp. I half expect there to be a green-shirted stoner and a massive Great Dane cowering in the corner.

04:03 – Taking a cellphone photo of a sleeping Sam with a plastic spoon in his mouth? I guess the episode isn’t going to be taking itself very seriously. Can this show even do “funny” episodes?

04:38 – Dean used to put Nair in Sam’s shampoo? We finally have an official backstory to the Sam Winchester Hair of Terribleness!

06:40 – Okay this montage of utterly unreliable eyewitnesses is bloody hilarious, and a bit of Blue Öyster Cult on the soundtrack helps it kick butt.

So the symbols aren’t written in blood, but freshly painted. Is someone trying to pull a Scooby-Doo scam for real? “And I’d have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for you meddling Winchesters!” – I think that makes Sam officially Velma. Jinkies!

11:56 – Zeddmore & Spengler? Wow, the only Ghostbusters reference that could be more blatant than that would be a “Who ya gonna call? “

13:09 – So these guys are clearly a parody of what Sam & Dean would be in real life, right? Is the show going meta and mocking itself?

14:13 – Ah, the old “blast the car radio upon ignition” prank, one of my favorites.

17:26 – Actually hanging people seems to be taking this prank thing a bit too far. Don’t be this guy.

18:46 – They did it. They actually did it.They had Dean shout out “Who you gonna call?” Somewhere, Huey Lewis’ legal team just started salivating.

24:13 – Seriously, did Blue Öyster Cult pay to feature in this episode? Also, I’m weirdly proud that I figured out that the sigil was a BOC logo way before Dean did.

25:58 – Itching powder in the clothes. This episode is so immature and goofy, I kind of love it.

26:09 – Shirtless Sam in a towel is purely there for the fan girls, right?

27:09 – D:”People believe in Santa Claus, how come I’m not hooked up every Christmas?” S:”Because you’re a bad person.” I laughed so hard at this exchange that I have soda burning through my nose.

29:21 – Did the dorktastic duo really just say “What would Buffy Do?” My eyes rolled so hard I can see the back of my skull.

31:39 – I guess that’s the paranormal equivalent of a snipe hunt.

32:41 – Exploiting the viral nature of the web to give the Tulpa a vulnerability was very smart of Sam.Gluing Dean’s hand to his beer was a pretty damned good prank too.

36:36 – I guess arson is one way to deal with a haunted house.

38:16 – So was this “producer” really Sam or Dean? I’m saying Sam as it seems too abstract to be a Dean prank.

39:05 – Yep, Sam.

This was a realcurate’s egg of an episode. While it makes sense to go a little lighthearted after the intensity of last time, not all of the humor lands as well as t should. The prank war between the brothers works great, as does there usual back and forth banter.Unfortunately the dorktastic duo just plain aren’t funny while the episode seems to think they are hilarious. I think this show can do comedy episodes, and will likely do them well in the future, this one struggles a little bit. Of course humor is very subjective, so that might just be me.

A quick note by way of introduction may be required here. For quite some time now, certain members of the Richmond WriMos have been trying to persuade me to watch the CW show Supernatural. I have relented and am now embarking on watching Supernatural via the wonders of Netflix. This series of posts will simply be my first impressions, almost stream of consciousness style, presented in the form of the time elapsed in the episode and my thoughts expressed as bullet points. It’s effectively live tweeting the episodes except I don’t have to stick to 140 characters or fewer. So without further ado here’s my take on:

Season 1 Episode 16 – “Shadow”

00:58 – Inevitable Teaser Death this episode is a young woman listening to an iPod. Since the previouslies featured Meg who we last saw indulging in some kind of blood ritual, I’m guessing that cause of Inevitable Teaser Death will be “human sacrifice.”

02:05 – Spooky voice on the wind/shadowy entity tells us that Inevitable Teaser Death girl is named Meredith.

09:41 – Meg showing up in the bar would have been quite the reveal if the previouslies hadn’t telegraphed it.

11:16 – Deeply impressive side-eye work from Mr. Ackles.

12:54 – Glad to see Sam suspects that Meg is up to something. He’s right in that random coincidences don’t happen to the brothers Winchester.

14:35 – So the shadow thing was a daeva – “The Pit Bull of Demons,” according to Dean. And since this was 2006 we can assume he means the dogs and not the terrible rapper.

15:16 – Dean’s determination to get his little brother laid would be skeevy enough even if we didn’t know Meg was kind of evil (and I’m guessing she’s the one controlling the daeva, which means she’s bloody powerful.)

18:24 – Look’s like Meg’s going to indulge in a weird blood rite again. At least this time Sam will witness it.

20:32 – Meg’s altar has the daeva symbol drawn on it in blood. She’s definitely controlling them. Not that that really counts as a reveal.

20:49 – “So Sammy’s got a thing for the bad girl.” Dean is the snark master.

23:50 – Interesting that Sam would go back to school and a normal life after they deal with the demon that got their Mom. He really is determined to be the white sheep of the family.

27:38 – Love the shadow attacks. Plus the wound on Sam’s face means that his hair is longer the most terrible looking thing about his head.

28:01 – “Don’t take this the wrong way, but your girlfriend is a bitch.” Once again, Dean Winchester reign as the king of Snark Mountain.

28:49 – Oh, the brothers are just bait. That has to hurt their egos.

30:46 – Meg is giving off a kind of rape-y vibe here. Also her villainous monologue has revealed that Daddy Winchester is in town, so I imagine he’ll show up in the episode soon.

32:10 – Damn, Sam! Great form on that headbutt. Kind of dumb to do it while you have an open wound dripping blood down your face though.

32:27 – Since the altar’s been destroyed, it looks like Meg’s getting hoist by her own petard. Also, since the daeva’s are now running amok uncontrolled, I feel like the brothers should follow Commander Kruge’s advice.

33:23 – Kind of surprised they didn’t check on Meg’s body to make real damned sure she was dead.

36:34 – Meg’s walking around again. Clearly she’s not human. The boys should have burned and salted the body after she took the dive, just to be safe. After all, even if she were human, worst case scenario, they have fifty-ish pounds of Meg jerky.

37:31 – Light flares as a way of dealing with shadow demons seems logical. Nice job with the book learnin’, Sammy

39:13 – While they’ve done a great job demonstrating why Daddy Winchester and the boys would be safer apart, I can’t help agree with Sam that they would be better off and more proactive in getting the demon if the triumvirate stayed together.

Okay, that was freaking awesome. Tied into the season’s metaplot in a big way. Indeed it was so concerned with the overall season arc that the daevas, ostensibly the monsters of the week, were merely a MacGuffin to get the real meat of the episode started. The return of Meg and her thematic ties to the demon that killed Mommy Winchester and Dead Jessica led to some crackling frisson between the characters, and of course the reunion, however short-lived, between the boys and their father was definitely a moment, and felt like it had been earned. I don’t imagine we’ll see Daddy Winchester again before the season finale in six episodes time, and episodes like this make me impatient to get there. Fantastic!

A quick note by way of introduction may be required here. For quite some time now, certain members of the Richmond WriMos have been trying to persuade me to watch the CW show Supernatural. I have relented and am now embarking on watching Supernatural via the wonders of Netflix. This series of posts will simply be my first impressions, almost stream of consciousness style, presented in the form of the time elapsed in the episode and my thoughts expressed as bullet points. It’s effectively live tweeting the episodes except I don’t have to stick to 140 characters or fewer. So without further ado here’s my take on:

Season 1 Episode 15 – “The Benders”

01:37 – The presumed Inevitable Teaser Death guy is being watched from a bedroom window by a slightly creepy kid, and for a second I wonder if the episode is going to riff on Hitchcock’s Rear Window

02:08 – Okay, the Winchester boys are pretending to be cops, and the reveal of this is…Sam taking off his policeman’s cap to unveil his legendary terrible hair.

04:56 – I misread the “Kugel’s Keg” bar sign as “Kegels Keg” and was wondering just exactly what kind of bar was this?

05:31 – We have (I think) the show’s first cat jump scare. The close captioning reads “[Meowing Angrily]” which seems oddly specific.

07:18 – Looks like Sam has been abducted from the obvious sound stage, I mean parking lot, by whatever our monster of the week is.

08:09- They remembered the continuity detail that officially speaking Dean is dead and the prime suspect as a serial killer. That was nine whole episodes ago!

08:53 – For someone who regularly faces all kinds of monsters, Dean looks positively petrified at the thought of doing paperwork.

09:44 – Despite all his rage, he’s still just a Sam in a cage.

10:55 – Literally the only way that van could seem more suspicious was if someone had crudely written “Free Candy,” on the sides.

11:40 – Turns out that Inevitable Teaser Death guy was in fact merely Teaser Kidnapping Victim guy. I give him a 15% chance of making it out of the episode alive.

12:53 – It appears that the monsters of the week are just plain old human beings.

14:15 – She ran Dean’s badge? He’s screwed. Royally.

14:38 – I like the sheer brazenness of Dean’s denial that he’s not the rather large African-American in the badge photo- “I lost some weight and I got that Michael Jackson skin disease.”

16:47 – I agree with Sam that the escape was too easy. I expect it’s a trap for Teaser Kidnapping Victim, but he’s been kind of whiny and annoying so let him die.

39:52 – “Because it’s fun.” Pappy really is a sick bastard, and I’m 98% sure that Kathleen’s gonna shoot him in the head within the next two seconds.

39:54 – Precisely two seconds. Damn, I’m good.

41:34 – “It was really hard not knowing what happened to him. I thought it’d be easier if I knew the truth but it isn’t really.” I’m wondering if that’s a little bit of subtle foreshadowing about what will happen when the boys confront the demon(entity?) that killed Mommy Winchester and Dead Jessica.

Interesting twist in making the villains of this episode humans rather than anything remotely supernatural. It ups the “ick” factor considerably when you add that veneer of plausibility. The fact that the episode (and presumably the redneck family) are named after an actual family of murderers. I will say that this episode felt as X-Files as all get out. In addition to the similarities mentioned up there in those bullet points there was the sense of claustrophobia and general shooting style with the dungeon basement scenes in particular. A pretty solid standalone episode.